More and more SAP customers are opting for Hana (and consequently Linux) and ERP successor S/4. According to a new forecast by German-speaking SAP user group DSAG, the percentage of existing customers using S/4 will continue to increase in the next three years – from currently 8 percent to then 50 percent.
These numbers are impressive, and they are not even taking new customers into account. Numerous companies of all sizes and industries will also switch to SAP and S/4 in the next couple of years.
By now, all customers have at least thought about the S/4 and Hana move – some more than others. SAP has been making sure that customers know what they can expect infrastructure-wise: a database migration, a hardware switch, and changing the operating system to Linux.
This threefold switch might seem complex or daunting to some, but there have already been successful use cases in the past.
New Hana/Linux users come from all kinds of infrastructures. From databases like Windows SQL Server, Oracle Database or IBM DB2; from hardware like Sun, HP, IBM Power or standard Intel Xeon and AMD hardware for SAP; and also from Unix operating systems like Sun Solaris, HP UX, IBM AIX and Microsoft Windows.
Example of a successful Hana/Linux mover
Generally, SAP customers do well with the Hana/Linux move. There are many success stories to choose from, but here’s a quick example.
This company is a supplier operating in the construction industry. On the road to S/4, this company migrated its SAP systems (ECC, APO, TM and PI) to Hana with Suse Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) for SAP Applications from its existing infrastructure with DB2, Power hardware and Power VM and AIX.
The company decided on Suse not only because of its long-standing partnership with SAP and the successful history of SLES for SAP Applications with Hana, but also because of Suse’s high market share in the SAP community (90 percent).
Additionally, the company wanted to leverage Suse Linux High Availability Extension (HAE), provided in combination with SLES for SAP Applications as kind of a value-adding Linux bonus pack.
The company’s migration project was successful. They paved the road towards S/4, and SAP system performance and high availability increased thanks to Hana and SLES for SAP Applications. Furthermore, system software licensing costs have decreased significantly.
With Hana and SLES for SAP Applications, the company is now more flexible and agile concerning future changes in SAP strategy. Opting for SAP Data Hub or cloud will then be easier than ever.
By the way, the move from AIX to Linux was seamless and generated no problems – which seems to be the standard with Hana/Suse migrations.
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